Ask MBA Crystal Ball

HI Sameer,

I would appreciate you help in evaluating my profile.

GMAT1 : 650 Q48 V32. (Pretty depressed could not finish either section in time guessed 4/5 in each section).

Region : Mostly India and Europe / Asia.

Education:

X : 88.75 (State Board).
XII : 84.7 (State Board).
Undergraduate : 85% (State university / Bachelor Of Technology)

Background :

1. 4 Years in IT consulting in one of the top 10 consulting companies.
2. 2 Years in Pre Sales in one of the top 10 enterprise product development company.

Work Profile:

1. IT Consulting: Mostly worked as developer. Joined as a fresher, worked all the way up to Senior Engineer in 4 Years (3 Designations). Have some work related certifications. I ended my tenure as "Module Lead".

2.Pre Sales Consultant : Most of the time spent in Evangelizing products in events (liasoning with Product Management)/ Creating prototype applications / Partner sessions with customer (may be other IT consulting organizations) / Responding to Technical RFx's. Some members of my team are MBA grads from top Indian colleges / Abroad Colleges, so it was an unique exposure for me. I got to know how they think on tackling a particular problem. Really helped my understanding of business challenges over the 2 years.

Awards and Accolades :

Studies:

1. National Scholarship for class 12 results (State board).
2. School Scholarship for class 10 results.

Work:
1. 3 Awards (2 individual / 1 team) in 4 years in my first organization.
2. 2 Promotions in 4 years.
3. Promoted within 2 years in my new company (Won major deals including the largest deal of 2017 for PaaS)

Reasons for awards :

Old Company.

1. Developed a KPI calculation tool : This is still used now. (Cumulative Work Ex : 3 months)
2. Critical Release : Single handedly managed a critical release for the organization for my application. The release was deemed so complicated that a "no go" was certain to result in the company losing the project. Got high visibility inside (upto Managing Director). Outside the company worked with the product development company to get the severe issue fixed. (Made some friends there as well). (Cumulative Work Ex : 2 Years)
3. Team Award : Won team award for data migration project. We migrated some 4-5 Million customers in 4-5 Months.

New Company :

After a working for 4 years, I decided that I wanted to do something more (I always wanted a Marketing job having seen my dad over the years). I had other development offers as well, but instead decided to move to pre sales (the same product development organization mentioned in point 2). I always wanted to know "how we bring projects / deals", additionally, I already knew how post sales consulting worked in IT. I somehow felt this completed my work experience (and it did / I now have a complete picture right from lead generation / opportunities to project delivery ). Anyways thought of giving it a try.

Results :
1. Won one of the largest the PaaS deals. Worked directly with the customer (Head of UX / Chief Architect) / Sales Representative, working on their requirements, developing prototype application, evangelizing our solutions.
2. Member of India Product Launch Event : My Solution was showcased in the Product Launch.
3. Won the first ever deal for the new product in ANZ.
4. All the above lead to promotion within 1.5 Years (Nomination in 1 Year 2 Months).


Extracurricular :

After College (There isn't much):

1. Competitive coder (75%ile in Algorithms Hacker Rank). Top 10 Percent Coders 2017 (Hacker Earth) [Dont know if they are relevant here/ Its kind of my hobby I really like life problem solving].
2. Passionate about music. Electric Guitar player.
4. Avid Football Follower. (Manchester United official Fan).
3. Participated in some CSR activities.

College:

1. Played E sports (semi professional level) / Stood third in college tech fest.
2. Member of Organizing committee of Fest.

School:

1. Represented School in a school level Music competition, aired live on television.

I would like to apply for colleges mostly in India / Asia / Europe (Netherlands / Germany).

Reasons For MBA :

I got addicted to customer facing roles after my new job.

I want to augment my profile. I want to move to Product management (Having worked with numerous product managers / I like their work and I feel it's kind of similar to what I do on a daily basis) / Business Development (We work with them everyday) or Inside Sales Strategy (This is something which I like most). I like the IT product industry. So most probably wont switch industries.

As Simon Sinek states "Start with Why", I indeed I started with why, but got stuck at "How". This made me realize that its time to address the "HOW!". In order for me to address the "How", I need some additional skill sets, which I currently lack, that are precisely the things taught in top management institutions in case studies. So for me it is mostly, acquiring additional skill sets to be relevant in the jobs I want to do. I have worked closely with most of the targeted jobs so know how they function and what are the challenges involved in each function.


Please advice some of the colleges where I could apply to.

Thanks, Srinjoy.